A fantasy epic, written in 19th century Lucknow, gets translated into English. Pakistani writer Musharraf Ali Farooqi has 23 more volumes to go

Once upon a time, in not-so-far-away Lucknow, two rival storytellers—Muhammad Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar—wrote a fantasy epic in Urdu called Tilism-e Hoshruba. It ran into 8,000 pages as the magical kingdom of Hoshruba opened up, and ravishing sorceresses, handsome giants and monsters began to inhabit the daydreams of Lucknavis. One hundred years later, Pakistani writer Musharraf Ali Farooqi is translating the once hugely popular tale, as part of his Urdu Project, a translation collective that aims to shine a light on Urdu literature of South Asia and Indo-Islamic myths.

The tale, Farooqi says, actually began much before Jah and Qamar. He points to a group of raconteurs, especially one Mir Ahmed Ali, who got bored with the Amir Hamza tales that emerged out of Akbar’s court and decided to create a kingdom of their own, an occult realm where Lucknow’s costumes and courtesies thrived. The tales, which belong to the oral tradition of dastan, captivated the city. Crowds gathered around Ali and his disciples everyday at designated spots in the bazaars — and came back for more the next day, some for “the scantily clad sorceress Sandal”, others for “the moon of the constellation of excellence” Prince Badiuz Zaman. The prince of the neighbouring Rampur finally made Ali his court storyteller and he had to leave Lucknow, but the city did not let go of his fantasy which he called Tilism-e-Hoshruba. In the 1880s, Munshi Naval Kishore of the famous Naval Kishore Press decided to publish the tales and got Jah to write them down. After four volumes, Qamar took over. He wrote the last three volumes.

... contd.